


It Doesn't Have to Be This Way

by JodyBarsch



Category: My So-Called Life
Genre: Canon Continuation, F/M, Gen, One Shot, The Letter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 00:36:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19073917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JodyBarsch/pseuds/JodyBarsch
Summary: After the letter, after their reconciliation, after Jordan showing up at her house, after Angela learning the truth, after he'd tugged her sleeve and led her to his car, after they'd driven away together, now they sit, quiet in his Plymouth, each of them wordless, neither for the same reason. Angela knows, will she let it go?





	It Doesn't Have to Be This Way

Angela and Jordan sit in his parked car, not long after he'd driven them down her street and out of her neighborhood. They aren't talking. Jordan seems content to just be sitting, not especially tuned in to his surroundings, but not absent either. They've already spent most of the day making out and it's nice now to just sit there and not be alone. If Jordan's noticed, he doesn't register any awareness that Angela is not similarly at ease. She's sitting there, stiffly, keenly mulling everything over while she stares out the darkened window. He isn't thinking of anything in particular, but she is. Her mind is a whirring, churning computation of lies and timelines, of promises and omissions. Weighing truths and half-truths, half-lies and inferences, Angela feels none of the tranquility Jordan does just a few feet away.

In time she speaks, likely after several formations of words and sentences before finally making herself audible. Her tone is less confrontational than matter-of-fact. She's not out to pick a fight necessarily, but she does intend to be answered. Her voice is calm and quiet, and she takes brief pauses between her sentences. "Why did you let me think that letter was from you." He stops his idle messing with his ring. Her gaze shifts between watching him acutely and staring emptily at her hands. "I know Brian Krakow wrote the letter," she states. "You never wrote that letter." When no response immediately comes, she reacts; abandoning her original approach of balance, Angela's frustration and humiliation begin to betray her, but still, she is not angry or accusatory. Rather, she recognizes their scenario for what it is, and the seeming futility of them sitting there, or anywhere, together. "What are we doing here?" Jordan kind of looks around, obviously taking her question to mean location and not circumstances. She clarifies, "No. I mean  _here_. What are we doing  _here_?"

He looks at her slowly, completely blindsided, "I don't get it..."

Showing her first hint of anger Angela asserts, "No,  _I_  don't get it.  _Why are you doing this?_ "

Uncomfortable with her reproach, Jordan shifts to his default, which is to go on the defensive. "Doing  _what?_ " he fires back.

"That  _note_ ," she itemizes, "the stopping me after class.  _What is going on?_ " Her momentum fades and just as quickly as she'd erupted she deflates. " _Uh—_ "

Jordan's totally confused at this point. Having taken it for granted that they were past all of this he's getting whiplash now from everything she's throwing at him at once. He wants her, he thought he'd made that clear.  _Wasn't that the problem from the start? That he hadn't been clear enough about it? Hadn't that been the problem with Rayanne? That his wanting Angela had been muddied by what'd happened with her? But hadn't he fixed it? Letter or no, hadn't he made it clear that he wants her?_ So, if so, he doesn't understand what this is, what she's doing. He'd finally figured it out: he does want her, wants to be with her. Even without sex.  _But is it so wrong to try to get through this with a little dignity? Is it so wrong to try to do this without having to say anything too explicitly?_  What he's done already should be enough. Jordan evades. "You know..."

"No," she contradicts him, "I really don't. I know you slept with my best friend," she lists. "I know you broke up with me because I wouldn't. I know that I have never once understood where I stood with you since I met you. I know you infuriate me. I know I  _thought_  you sent me a tremendously heartfelt letter apologizing for it all. I thought you were sorry." Here her intensity slackens, her words drift as more and more she senses the pointlessness in even trying to make him understand. "... I know I feel incredibly  _stupid_..." She is open now,  _almost_  vulnerable as she continues, "But I do not know why you're doing this."

"Look—" Either at a loss or unwilling to say anything closer to the truth, he settles on, "I thought we were friends." Jordan's failure to say all that he meant makes the word 'friends' come out sounding limp and ineffectual, but he tries not to hear it.

She looks at him, "I don't know what you call this, but I don't feel like you're my friend. I feel – I feel terrible,  _all_  the time when you're around."

"That's not true," he counters. Angela rolls her eyes and huffs; anything he could recall to refute her, in her mind holds no weight. Not now. But Jordan is not derailed. "What about today?" he presses.

Angela's voice has gone numb, "Misunderstanding."

"A 'misunderstanding'?" Jordan challenges her. He's not buying her detached apathy.

"False pretenses."

In response to her lack of emotion, Jordan's words become aggressive; he can't take this deadened indifference from her, so if it's between this listless nothing and her yelling, he'll push her till she yells. "So, because I didn't write a letter, you  _hate_  me?"

He hasn't gotten through and her tone remains matter-of-fact and disinvested. "I hated you because of Rayanne," she states flatly. "Now, I just want it to be over."

"Look," he starts again, still trying to break through to her, "the Rayanne thing was a mistake. I'm sorry."

This apology is much too late. Now she's just worn out. Now she's near not caring. "It's not about that."

Jordan's voice pitches in aggravation. "You haven't talked t' me for  _weeks_ , you don't even  _look_  at me, and it's ' _not about that'?_ "

Because it's easier, she acquiesces, "Yeah, I was mad. But it doesn't matter now."

Narrowing his eyes, Jordan gruffly challenges her, "How do you figure?"

"Because," she lays on him firmly, "you do whatever you want to do, and it has nothing to do with me." This last part is aloud, but is not exactly directed towards Jordan, "...None of this is about me."

He's still challenging her, still trying to shake them back into something that makes sense to him, "If it's not about you, then why am I here?"

"You're the only one who knows that." By this point, Angela's disinvested herself so much she nearly sounds like a ghost.

Jordan's fully irritated, "All right," he spits, "forget it." He looks away.

"Forgotten."

After a few moments of burning silence he asks, not exactly nicely, "So, you want to go home?"

"I'd rather walk." She's angry and relishes the opportunity to be difficult.

This has pissed him off. "What, you can't even be in the same  _car_  as me? You're  _that_  angry?" He looks at her, gesticulating with accusation, "So, what was today about?"

Tired, Angela shakes her head, "Nothing. It wasn't anything."

 _Bullshit._  Jordan confronts her in absolute frustration, " _God._  You know you like me."

"I used to like you," she wearily amends.

Jordan's eyes roll. "This  _is_  about Rayanne."

"It's about everything. It's just all over. Like you said, 'forget it'."

"God damn it, Angela, stop." This startles her – she'd been in control of the conversation for a while and had taken it for granted – she wasn't expecting him to call her on it. "Stop being so damned defensive. It doesn't have to be like this."

For the first time since this fight erupted, she's open-minded, but still, her words come detached and subdued, "Maybe not. But this feels like the only way I can be right now."

He tries again, "I want _—_  I want things to be okay."

Her defenses lowered, Angela tries to explain. "I don't feel at all safe around you."

Jordan swallows. "I'm sorry." He is. That indictment cut him, more than she could rightly know. He'd never meant to make her, or anyone, feel unsafe. That's not who he intends to be.

"Yeah." The aloofness of her response throws off the would-be balance of his apology.

They sit there in his car, quiet and without stirring. Time passes. Silent minutes that drag like hours echo the sounds of the words they've flung at each other. It feels like the end of the conversation. It feels like it must be the end of everything. There doesn't seem to be any possible resurgence from this. Once or twice, Jordan's hand moves toward the ignition, but he never starts the car. Angela is mostly looking out the window, wanting to be away from there, but relatively willing to wait until Jordan decides to leave. She will not speak.

Unable to bear the silence any longer, more so unable to bear the drastic turn around in their standing, Jordan exhales. "This is not what I expected tonight to be like."

Angela nods mutely. "I know." More time passes.

Eventually, staring off and shaking his head, Jordan speaks, but not especially to her, "... I was actually happy today."

Angela nods once. She swallows before speaking. "I was too."

He turns on her then, challenging her, "And now you don't feel 'safe'? Now I 'do whatever I want' screw everybody else?" He looks at her, partially defying her to answer, partially pleading with her to bend. Seeing she will not yield, Jordan shakes his head, ready to accuse her, to levy all of this on her. "You want it this way." Angela looks at him and he continues trying to bully her into responding, "You're scared, and you like all the conflict because it makes you feel grown-up."

"Shut up."

"You  _want_  it this way," he pushes.

"Believe me," she answers with composure, "I don't."

Determined still, he appeals to her, "Then, just move past it."  _They had been right there. This afternoon he'd had her in his arms, she was his, and they'd been good. Happy._ He still can't see how in one short span of time they've gotten to someplace with no road back to then.  _They'd had it in their grasp — the whatever it is they've been chasing after for all these months. He won't call it love, but hadn't it been something close to it? How could all that be already gone so absolutely?_

Angela looks at him with cold unwavering aggression, "Why?"

This is the moment. He either says it now or he doesn't ever. There will be no other chance. Jordan starts, his blue eyes lift to then fall from hers. "Because..." Angela thinks this is all there is, and it is nowhere near to being enough; she starts to look away— "I want you. Angela."

Her eyes then find his. Finally open to what he has to say, she asks once more, holding him accountable, "Why?"

Held in her sober gaze he freezes, "I don't know." He feels immediately her attention begin to shut him out. He speaks again "… There's something about you."

This wasn't enough. She shakes her head, "We're too different. And I can't meet your certain expectations." She doesn't mean sex. She isn't that person he needs her to be: quiet, cool, apathetic, the nonplussed in-crowd outsider. She's loud, and silly, and introspective, and uncool, and still growing up. She can't play his games, and she's reconsidering if she ever really wanted to. But Jordan isn't deterred.

"We'll work it out." He looks at her, his long lashes fluttering over those blue eyes that won't stay still as they study her solemn face. "And you have expectations too." Jordan knew what she was doing all those times she'd tried to force him into a role she probably dreamed up back in seventh grade. He's not the only one who'll need to adjust. He wants her to say  _yes_ , but he's not getting there without being upfront. When he speaks again he means it, "But we can try..." He's finally reached her, he can tell; she looks at him softly in spite of herself, almost momentarily wantonly. Though he's said very little, she'd never dreamed he'd work this hard to get her.

' _I could kill myself for caving this way_ _—_ _after everything_ ,' she thinks to herself as his gaze intensifies. She can feel it'll only be moments before their lips meet. Jordan reaches across the car — that moments earlier had felt as cavernous as time — to touch her face. The effect is immediate, like her entire epidermis has melted. His lips are the next to cross the divide and Jordan kisses her slowly, she does not move away. ' _But then, maybe that's exactly what I'm doing,_ ' she thinks. Angela's lips open and meld with his, soft, and yearning, and unassuming. After the fuming and the blame laying, the caustic comebacks and the violent silences, Angela yields to the kiss she's had no way of knowing would ever come again. Five minutes ago could have marked the end of everything. And so she kisses him a little longer but then she does break away.

Withdrawing from him, tucking her hair, Angela composes herself and settles back into her seat. "I better get back."

Jordan, still reeling from all the switchbacks, remains silent for a bit before responding. His quiet eyes study her in profile. He can't tell what she's thinking, or where they stand. "Okay," he finally answers, then faces forward, and starts the car.

* * *

Now parked across the street from Angela's house, it seems as if Angela has been quiet for an age; she's slipped back into her subdued state as she mulls something over for herself.

Jordan looks over to her, breaking the silence, "What?"

"Nothing." He hasn't stopped looking at her, and she feels him waiting for more. "Only," she looks at him, "not lying was something I thought I could count on you for."

Jordan feels the full blow of this censure, and is more than earnest in his reply. "It is."

Dubious, Angela interrogates, " _Yeah?_ "

Soberly, Jordan nods his affirmation. It matters to him that people not feel unsafe around him. It matters to him that his word means something. It matters, not being his old man. Solemnly, he clears his throat, "Yeah." The letter had been stupid. Involving Brian at all had been stupid. The pretense of it all had been stupid. He'd only wanted her to listen. He'd tried first on his own. Maybe he should see in this some signal that something deeper is not right between them. If his words weren't enough, if wanting her was not enough for him to speak his whole truth, maybe all of this is wrong. But he's only just got her listening again, only just got her looking him in the eye; he's not looking for reasons for any of it to stop. It's enough for him to commit to honesty. That commitment is easiest to make.

Swallowing, Angela too nods, "Okay."

Jordan touches her hair, brushing it away from her face, "Okay." He kisses her, still relishing it as though it could be the last, still electrified like it was their first. Angela lets him; guardedly she returns the kiss until once more she pulls away.

When she does pull away she looks him dead on, "Is this a mistake?"

He doesn't want to think about that. He'd just kissed her, he doesn't want to talk this over again. He wants this part behind them. The past few days, with Brian, the stupid letter, her  _mom_ , and now her, he's gone out further on a limb than he ever has before, about anything. He doesn't want it to be a mistake. " _Shh_." He kisses her again, his hands in her hair. Jordan's done talking — they're so close.

After a moment more she breaks away. "I've gotta go."

Balanced between meaning and characteristic Catalano-nonchalance, he asks, "Should I swing by in the morning?"

Angela looks from Jordan to Brian's house. When she answers him, it's a little drawn out and distracted, "...Yeah, okay." She climbs out and closes the door. There is a short moment when they look at each other, when possibly he's seeing one thing and she another, but after the exertion of all that, they choose not to be on different pages. They leave it at 'he'll be there in the morning'. Angela turns and walks up the path to her door. Jordan's car remains parked on the street. Just as she opens the door and turns around, Jordan drives off.

* * *

Upstairs, Angela pops her head into her mother's room, "I'm back."

Patty looks up from her book, "How'd everything work out?"

Angela half-smiles and answers, sounding a little tired, "I don't really want to talk about it." She looks to her mother, "Is that all right?"

Patty looks at her, studying her daughter's face. "Of course."

Having just showered, Graham emerges from their bathroom in a t-shirt and boxers. "Hey."

"Hi." With subdued interested Angela asks, "So, how'd your thing go?"

For an instant, Graham hesitates before smiling and answering, "It was ... great." Unnoticed by either his wife or his daughter, Graham pauses, stuck on thinking about something he wishes to forget. When he comes out of it, Graham changes the subject, "I'm starving though." Moving into the hallway, he passively sets a hand on Angela's shoulder as he passes by her in the doorway.

Angela watches Graham head down the hall toward the stairs, then, after a little while of just lingering in the bedroom doorway, she says to her mother, "I just wanted to tell you I'm home."

Ready to listen to anything Angela wants to share, but willing to honor her privacy, Patty smiles mildly, "Thank you."

A beat later, Angela adds, "Jordan's giving me a ride to school tomorrow." She's said it casually, as a kind of 'by the way' thing, but it communicates much more than what she is actually saying, and Patty understands the full meaning.

Here her mother smiles again, still mild and impartial. "Okay."

"Well," Angela says, "'night,"

"Goodnight." Patty watches her daughter turn away.

* * *

The following morning, with her backpack beside her, Angela sits on the Chase front porch sipping a mug of hot chocolate. She doesn't usually beat Jordan to his arrival, a fact that never ceases to surprise her given the general malaise with which he approaches most things, and in particular school. Part of her is sitting out there as a sort of test:  _Will he be there like he said he would be?_  But then there he is. The shock of red and the rumble of his muscle car turning her corner make good his word. Jordan pulls up and she, partially ambivalent to his arrival, stands and walks to the car to get in.

"Morning," she says.

"Hey." He looks over to her as Angela's putting her seatbelt on and juggling the hot beverage. "Come here." She turns in his direction and Jordan leans over and kisses her happily. Still close, he smiles at her, "Morning." With everything in place, Jordan turns back then and starts the car. "Don't spill that," he instructs coolly, without even a glance in her direction. With no doubts of where they've landed, Jordan pulls into the street and heads for school.

* * *

The ride to school was unexpectedly quiet and it's left Jordan feeling a little unsure about things he thought they'd already settled. "Angela, I wanna be clear 'bout where we left things last night..."

"Okay..."

"Cuz," he's searching for the way to say it, "it still seems like, you're— It seems like you don't care."

She knows exactly what he's talking about. "You're right." She swallows. "I don't."

"Because...?" He'd been hoping that he'd misread things. Apparently, he hadn't.  _Is this ever going to just end?_

Angela shifts in her seat to face him more, "I was angry, and I was hurt, and I've lost a friendship, and it's all very recent, and I don't know how well I knew you in the first place, and it's recent, and so there's a certain point where a person has to stop caring."

"Okay," he grants, struggling to figure this out, "but you kissed me. Last night, and today. You're in my car now, so..."

"It's hard."

"See, part of you is angry, and part of you is hurt or scared; part of it's pride, but part of you just wants to be here." He waits for her to respond, watching her reaction. "I'm not going t' say anything to convince you."

"I know." After all he'd finally said last night, which, if she really lets herself think about it, still wasn't all that much, Angela knows nothing more in the world than the fact that Jordan Catalano's not going to do anything more to get her. He's not going to debase himself with pressuring her into being with him. He'll wait — the next minute or two — for her to decide, and then that'll be it. More than four months worth of back and forth and a whole lot of entry-level heartache and humiliation's come down to this. She'd wanted him, and now, by the strangest sequence of events, he's hers to have – and she doesn't even know what 'having him' means to him. She just has to decide:  _In the end, is it worth it?_

She nearly gets out of the car. She almost tells him to go to hell. Or maybe for him to have a great life, but 'goodbye'.  _But where would that leave her, and who would she be kidding?_  She still wants him so damn much and she's never been closer to having him. ' _Sometimes,'_  she thinks, _'our hearts want what they want, more than they want to be safe, or careful, or right.'_

Breathing in, Angela looks him squarely in the eye, " _Don't_ —" she exhorts "—mess me up."

"A—" He starts to respond, but he doesn't know exactly what he wants to say to her. He bites his lips then pushes on. "Angela," he tells her, "none of it. None of it was on purpose."

She hears him tell her this. And she believes he means it, believes he believes it will fix things, but Angela understands what he seems still not to: "You realize, that just makes you all the more treacherous." Jordan flinches. Though she'd almost given in, something in her makes her speak, "Why am I even supposed to believe you want this?" As she continues, she's not accusing him so much as reminding him, "You did not want this. You made it really clear, in multiple ways, you did not really want this."

He looks at her, and instead of taking the bait he studies her and what she's said. His lips purse, "That's, not—" But Jordan cuts himself off. He can't explain it any more than he has. " _'I don't want to be with you_?' Were you there yesterday? In the hall, in my car?" He can tell she doesn't want to concede to his point. It's time to level with her, "All,  _that_? That's not what this is about." He looks at her hard, "You know why I'm here. And why you are." She does know. Whatever Brian had offered her, standing with her there in the streetlight, whatever part of the letter he'd truly meant, she isn't ready to think about. No doubt it will creep back into her mind, a possibility to be examined, but not today. In spite of everything, Jordan isn't wrong about her. However tired and unsure she may feel, Angela is still undeniably caught up on the stirring possibility of them. He can see her teetering. He knows, he has known, for months he's known, she wants him. He thought he'd screwed it up, that she'd hate him forever, but he gets now that that's not it — it's her pride, and her fear.  _At least that gives him a shot_.

In the time that she deliberates, warring with herself and what she knows and what she wants, Jordan looks away, then looks back; he exhales, and takes the keys from the ignition. "Let's go." Angela does not move. She can't make out his meaning.  _Is it over?_  She cannot decipher his motives. Jordan meets her gaze, "This is a trust thing." He leans across her and pops open her door, "Starts, with getting you t' class on time."

She looks at him, expressionless until she speaks, "I don't need you for that."

"Yeah, well," he says jocosely, "my point's that I'm not 'messing you up'. Get outta my car."

"You know that's not what I meant."

Jordan shrugs, flexing his newly claimed resilience. "Get out."

In spite of herself, Angela half chuckles, and climbs out, " _Wow_."

Jordan's out too, locking his doors and crossing over to her. He hands her her backpack. "I know you're in," he tells her with assurance. Jordan heads off toward the main entrance but turns back when she's not beside him. He looks at her in momentary earnestness, and he tells her as plainly as she needs: "It won't happen again." With that, he takes her hand and leads her through the parking lot. They merge into the crowd of other students heading toward their homerooms, and as she walks by his side, so close to him, her hand firmly held in his, she isn't displeased to be there.

Jordan swings her hand in his, and friendly-like he says, "Don't  _you_  mess me up."

"Deal."

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very small segment of a much larger MSCL story I post at fanfiction.net "MSCL Vignettes". Thank you for reading! xx


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